The new Soviet regime inherited the land and economic foundation left by Russia, but the Soviet Union did not completely inherit all the territory of Russia: Poland and Finland became independent countries after the fall of the czar government. It seems to be a rather arduous task for the Soviet Union to solve the mess left by Russia, which is smaller in territory and less in resources than Russia. However, it took only two five-year plans for the Soviet Union to develop into a heavy industry and military power, and at the same time become the country with the largest economic aggregate in Europe and the second in the world. By the end of World War II, the Soviet Union had become a superpower to compete with the United States.
It is only 28 years from the October Revolution of 19 17 to the end of 1945 World War II, in which the first five years were the remnants of the Soviet Red Army and the civil war of the White Army, the last four years were the period of fighting against German fascism, and the real domestic construction period was only 19. In particular, World War II caused a heavy blow to the Soviet Union: there were 29.6 million casualties in World War II, including 26.6 million deaths, and almost every Soviet family suffered casualties. At the same time, the war also brought huge material losses to the Soviet Union: during the war, 1, 7 10 cities, more than 70,000 villages and towns and 3 1, 850 industrial enterprises in the Soviet Union were all or partially destroyed. After World War II, western countries generally believed that the Soviet Union would be removed from the list of world powers.
However, the Soviet Union, which is not optimistic, successfully tested an atomic bomb with the equivalent of 22,000 tons of TNT on August 29th 1949, becoming the second country with nuclear weapons after the United States. 1958, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite. 196 1 year, the Soviet Union successfully sent yuri gagarin, the first human astronaut, into space, thus taking the lead in the US-Soviet space race. At the same time, the Soviet Union built the Oriental Group with itself as the core, and the world gradually developed into the pattern of hegemony between the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union became the only superpower in the world that could compete with the United States. Why did the Soviet Union rise strongly after taking over the mess left by Russia and experiencing a bitter war?
In order to explain this problem clearly, we might as well look at the basis for the Soviet Union to take over Russia. In fact, Russia's so-called backwardness is only relative to other powerful countries. 19 13 when the first world war broke out, the territory of Russia was 22.8 million square kilometers and the population was1700,000. The railway mileage is as high as 70 156 km, the steel output is the third in Europe, the power generation is the fourth in Europe, the local oil output is the first in Europe, and agriculture is completely self-sufficient. At that time, Russia was truly the fourth largest economy in the world, and its industrial output value was second only to that of the United States, Germany and Britain. During the last 20 years when Tsar Nicholas II was in power, Russia increased its population by 60 million, and implemented agricultural reform at the same time.
From 65438 to 0908, Russia began to popularize compulsory primary education, and at the same time greatly increased the education budget, which greatly improved the education level of Russians. In the global economic crisis of191-1912, the Russian economy showed an upward trend. The statistical yearbook of Russian economic archives shows that in 1906- 1965438, the consumption of grain, alcohol, coffee, sugar, tea, tobacco and cotton basically shows an upward trend year by year. Our textbook says that the Soviet Union turned Russia from an agricultural country into an industrial country, but the earliest industrial foundation of Russia was not laid in the Soviet era. Although Russia can't be called an industrial country, it already has an early industrialization foundation.
The first generation of new China leaders once said, "What can we build now? Can make tables and chairs, tea bowls and teapots, can grow food, can be ground into flour and can make paper; But a car, a plane, a tank and a tractor can't be built. This shows that the industrialization of new China is based on poverty, but the industrialization of the Soviet Union is much stronger. In fact, Russia did not miss the first two industrial revolutions, especially after the reform of 186 1 serfdom, Russia's capitalist economy developed so rapidly that it took only a few decades to complete the transformation that other European countries took hundreds of years to complete.
During the period of 186 188 1, Russia's cloth output tripled, and at the same time, weaving mills squeezed out the hand-woven industry. 1860 1890 Russian pig iron production increased from 20.5 million putt to 56.6 million putt; The steel output increased from 65.438+02.5 million putt to 520 million putt; Coal production increased from180,000 putt to 367 million putt. In 1866, there were less than 3,000 Russian factories. By 1903, there were nearly 9,000 factories. With the expansion of the domestic market, the construction of railways has also increased rapidly: 1865 1895, and the number of Russian railways has increased from 3,374 to 3 1728. Russia's economy is slowly transitioning to capitalism along the Prussian road.
The symbol of Russian capitalist economic development in the 65438+80s was railway construction: at that time, Tsar Alexander III particularly emphasized the construction of industrial and strategic railways. 10, Russia built Ural Railway, connecting Baku and Tbilisi, and built the East Caspian Railway from Krasnov to the Afghan border via Tashkent. During this period, machine production has occupied a dominant position in Russian industrial production, and basically completed the transition from manual workshops to mechanized large-scale industries. Great changes have taken place in Russian industry in the late 1980s: the proportion of heavy industry in the industrial structure has increased, forming the Donbass Coal Mine Industrial Zone and Baku Petroleum Industrial Zone.
In 19 13 years, Russia's steel output was 0 times that of 1 1880, its energy consumption was 9.3 times that of 1880, and its urban population was 4 times that of 1880, so its economic growth rate has reached the second place in the world. This shows that the earliest industrial base in Russia was actually laid in the czar era, but because of the incomplete reform of serfdom, Russia retained too many remnants of feudal small-scale peasant economy. The so-called backwardness of Russia is only compared with the United States, Germany, Britain and other big countries, but we should never think that the industrialization of the Soviet Union, like the new China, was completely developed on the basis of poverty. In fact, the czar era laid the earliest industrial foundation in Russia, but the bondage of feudal serfdom made Russia's industrialization process lag behind the West for a long time.
When it comes to the works written by the first generation of people who opened their eyes to see the world in the history of China, perhaps the first thing people will think of is Lin Zexu's Four Seas and Wei Yuan's Hai Zhi. In fact, there is also a book that systematically introduced the countries in the world at that time, namely Xu Jishe's Ying Huan Zhi. What is Xu Jishe's record of Russia in this book? First of all, Xu Jishe pointed out that Russia is "the biggest foreign country". This is obviously in terms of the size of Russia. At the same time, he believes that Russia's national strength is "unable to dominate one side" compared with countries such as Britain and France at that time. In the era of Xu Jishe, it was completely normal that Russia's national strength was not as good as that of Britain, France and other countries-the Crimean War was the best proof.
Why is the vast Russia not as powerful as Britain and France? Xu Jishe explained this: "The owners of this land are mostly barren land of northern descent, and the eastern part of it is covered with ice and snow, and the vegetation is not numerous, so it is impossible to roam. So all the departments in Mobei abandoned it and stopped living there, and the Russians got it. The so-called people abandon me and take it, but they keep it for themselves because they can't get rid of it ... The advantages of the ship, the nature of firearms, and calculation. Russia's territory is mainly concentrated in the northern cold zone. Although the territory is vast and the land is fertile, it is difficult to develop the land, and the level of industry and agriculture is backward. Even the nomadic people on the Mobei grassland find it difficult to live here.
There are only some primitive fishing, hunting and gathering tribes living in the area, so Russia can easily conquer large areas of territory and then benefit from the fur and minerals in these areas. However, Russia, which is located on the edge of European civilization circle, has been lagging behind the west in the evolution of its civilization and system. The lack of good seaports and the excessive remnants of feudal serfdom have made Russia's comprehensive national strength lag behind Britain, France and other countries. Of course, this does not mean that Russia was an insignificant country in the international system at that time. Therefore, after making the above analysis, Xu Jishe said, "Because of its vast territory, poverty and backwardness, all countries dare not despise it."
Russia has a huge volume, and even in the case of relatively backward technology, it can achieve scale effect by supplementing quality with quantity. In this way, there is a development trend between Russia and the west: whenever the world political, economic and military systems undergo structural changes, Russia will be left behind by the west because of its own civilization and system lag; When the world's political, economic and military systems enter a stage of stable development, Russia's volume advantage will gradually make up for the deficiencies in civilization, system and technology. /kloc-the second industrial revolution in the second half of the 0/9 th century made Europe, America and civilization leap forward as a whole. In this process, the national strength of Britain, France, Germany and the United States has made a qualitative breakthrough.
At this time, under the restriction of harsh natural environment and backward social structure, the development of mechanized large-scale industry in Russia lagged behind other powers, so tsarist Russia became "the weak link of imperialism" at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century. However, when the world changes from a transitional period to a period of steady development, the primary factor that determines the strength of countries is no longer innovation, but volume. In the final analysis, new technologies and systems will always spread around the world: once upon a time, Britain dominated the first industrial revolution, but products such as steam engines invented by Britain will inevitably spread around the world.
With the spread of new technologies around the world, there is still a certain gap between backward countries and advanced countries in technology. But this gap has been greatly narrowed, so there is no obvious generation gap between countries. Therefore, a country with a huge scale, even if it is slightly backward in technology, can completely make up for its shortcomings through the mode of insufficient quality and quantity. Larger scale means greater potential strength, higher labor productivity, greater strategic depth, larger domestic market and stronger resource scheduling ability. Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands, countries with a population of one million, took the lead in rising in the era of great navigation because they seized the historical opportunity.
But in the era of industrial revolution, world hegemony was transferred to countries with tens of millions of people, such as Britain, France and Germany. After the two world wars in the 20th century, the status of Britain, France and Germany was replaced by two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. It is not difficult to find from the changes of the world pattern in the past 500 years that world hegemony has shifted to countries with larger land area and more population. The Russian empire, which was deeply troubled by feudal serfdom, was not good at innovation, so in the early stage of the second industrial revolution, western powers seized the opportunity of the times to reform and innovate quickly. However, when the institutional and technological innovations brought about by the second industrial revolution become more and more stable, Russia will naturally learn from the advanced experience of the West.
Although there is still a gap between Russia and the West after learning, this gap can be completely made up by the size of Russia. 1922 when the Soviet union was formally established, it was half a century since the second industrial revolution began in 1870. In the past 50 years, the high-end technology of the second industrial revolution has become more mature, the cost of popularization has been greatly reduced, and the efficiency and practicality have been greatly improved. All these make it possible for Russia to make large-scale use of the achievements of the second industrial revolution. After the collapse of the czar's regime, the independence of Poland and Finland made the land area of the Soviet Union smaller than that of the czar's era, but the main land of Russia was still largely inherited by the Soviet Union.
The vast territory of the Soviet Union provided it with broad strategic depth and abundant natural resources. Mackinder's geopolitical theory mentions that Russia is a country occupying the international geopolitical heartland. The heart of Eurasia is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and rivers all flow to inland lakes or the Arctic Ocean. It is an inaccessible place at sea and a huge natural fortress. This geographical advantage has always existed in Russia or the Soviet era. However, before the arrival of the mechanized industrial era, the ability of human beings to develop alpine frozen soil was quite limited. Most of Russia's geographical location belongs to high latitudes, so the geopolitical energy hidden in the vast territory of the tsarist era has not been fully released.
The Soviet Union inherited the resources and population of Russia's vast territory, but the Soviet Union is no longer a feudal serfdom country. The Soviet Union implemented a thorough industrialization policy through a national system with high mobilization ability. The planned economic system of the Soviet Union did have obvious disadvantages, which also became the shackles of the further economic development in the later period of the Soviet Union, but this does not mean that the planned economic system of the Soviet Union has never achieved any results in history. In fact, the planned economy model of the Soviet Union also played a great role in a specific historical period: due to the prediction and planning of the economy, the formulation of the national economic development strategy, the adjustment of the main structure of the national economy and the rational distribution of productive forces.
The advantage of this is that it is conducive to the rationalization of the main proportional relationship of the national economy and avoids the overproduction phenomenon that has appeared in the history of capitalist countries. In fact, the New Deal of Roosevelt in the United States and the Keynesian economic concept that was once popular in the post-war western countries both borrowed and absorbed the advantages of the Soviet planned economy under the basic premise of maintaining the capitalist free market economy-strengthening the government's macro-control role in the economy. Of course, this economic model ignores market demand and is not conducive to promoting technological progress and innovation. This is also the reason why this economic development model has been replaced by the market economy model. But in a specific historical period, this economic development model can really concentrate on doing great things.
This economic model enabled the Soviet Union to avoid the cyclical overproduction and economic crisis in capitalist society. 1929 The economic crisis that swept through the capitalist world forced capitalist countries to gradually relax their blockade of the Soviet Union, so a large number of capital and skilled workers began to arrive one after another, providing a strong impetus for the development of the Soviet Union. In this situation, the land resources of the Soviet Union have been fully developed, the industrial system has begun to develop by leaps and bounds, and the regional potential has been fully released. In Stalin's words: "The Soviet Union changed from an agricultural country to an industrial country in about 13 years." . 1April, 937, the second five-year plan was completed ahead of schedule.
This shows that the Soviet Union has surpassed the major capitalist countries in the world in terms of industrial development speed. At this time, the total industrial output value of the Soviet Union has jumped to the first place in Europe and the second place in the world. During this period, 4,500 new industrial enterprises were built and put into production, and the national economic and technological transformation was basically completed. 1937, the ratio of the total industrial output value of the Soviet Union increased by 1 0.2 times in 1932, while the national income increased by1times, and the means of production maintained an average annual growth rate of 17. 1%. In particular, the machine manufacturing industry in the Soviet Union greatly exceeded the planned target: the output value ratio of machine manufacturing industry and metal processing industry in the Soviet Union increased by 1.932 times, while the original planned target was1./kloc-0 times.
With the rise of Nazi Germany, Stalin has been keenly aware of the potential war risks in the future, so the development of heavy industry and national defense industry during the third five-year plan of the Soviet Union has the meaning of racing against time from the beginning. During the third five-year plan period, the Soviet government stepped up the development of heavy industry in the eastern region: at that time, the blast furnaces built in the eastern region accounted for about 3/4 of all newly built blast furnaces. This is actually to prevent possible wars in the future. Before the outbreak of the Soviet-German war, new metallurgical plants were established in the outer Baikal, Urals and amur river basins, large-scale nonferrous metal smelters were established in Central Asia, and new automobile assembly plants, aluminum plants, pipe rolling plants and hydropower stations were established in the Far East.
During the Soviet-German War, the industrial bases in the western part of the Soviet Union suffered heavy losses. However, the Soviet Union, which has the most vast territory in the world, overcame the difficulties by moving its industrial bases eastward: Urals, Central Asia and the Far East were not baptized by the war, so the industrial bases in these areas were preserved. Moreover, even in the war-torn western region, the industrialization foundation laid by the first two five-year plans has not been completely lost: the reconstruction and revival of countries such as the Soviet Union, Germany and Japan after World War II did not start from scratch like New China-only tangible factories and machines were destroyed by the war, but the intangible advantages of technology and management accumulated by these countries before the war were not destroyed.
As a country that basically completed industrialization before World War II, the Soviet Union did not lose its core competitive advantage, although it suffered heavy losses in World War II. If the population, resources and industrial production capacity of medium-sized countries in Western Europe are compared with those of continental powers such as the United States and the Soviet Union, it is not difficult to see the advantages of continental countries such as the Soviet Union: 1940, the total population of Germany is about 70 million, the annual steel output is 21500,000 tons, and the power generation is 63 billion kWh; At this time, the corresponding figures of the United States that did not enter the wartime state were 654.38+32 billion, 60.7 million tons and 654.38+078 billion kWh; The Soviet Union, whose technology lags behind Germany, is 65.438+0.7 billion tons, 65.438+0.83 million tons and 48 billion kWh.
Although Germany has conquered most of western Europe by blitzkrieg at this time, even if Germany can mobilize the resources of the whole western Europe, it will only make its steel output and power generation slightly ahead of the Soviet Union, which has just completed the second five-year plan, and the latter's labor resources are beyond Germany's power. The Soviet Union established two powerful industrial systems with five-year plans before World War II, and the Soviet Union changed from an agricultural country to an industrial country with a complete industrial system. From 1940 to 1944, Germany made every effort to increase its weapons production by 200%, but the Soviet Union, with relatively backward technology, still kept its weapons production above 90% of Germany's.
Although the Soviet Union suffered heavy losses in the war with German fascists, it did not lose its core competitive advantage: after World War II, the Soviet Union was able to maintain its advantages in scale and volume and the industrialization foundation laid by the two five-year plans. Although the Soviet Union suffered 29.6 million casualties in World War II, the post-war Soviet Union was still a big country with a population of 654.38+67 billion, which provided sufficient labor resources for the post-war reconstruction of the Soviet Union. In the late World War II, the Soviet Union pursued the Germans abroad on the basis of recovering lost territory, and with the collapse of the colonial system after World War II, it created good conditions for the Soviet Union to spread socialist ideas.
After World War II, the Soviet Union brought Eastern European countries, Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba and other countries into the Eastern Group with itself as the core. Before World War II, the Soviet Union, as the only socialist country in the world, fought alone in the world. However, after World War II, with the formation of the Eastern bloc with the Soviet Union as the core, the Soviet Union was able to get rid of its diplomatic isolation, thus greatly enhancing its international influence. At the same time, the Soviet Union also expanded its raw material producing area and market sales place in this process: the Soviet Union can obtain cheap tropical products such as sugar and rubber from Cuba and cheap oil from Romania.
The Soviet Union also gained direct territorial benefits in World War II: after the war, the territorial adjustment of Finland, Poland, Germany, Romania and other countries increased the territory of the Soviet Union by nearly 600,000 square kilometers. The Soviet Union, together with the United States, Britain and France, partitioned and occupied Germany. The Soviet Union dismantled the factories and equipment in the Soviet occupied area and shipped them back to the Soviet Union. Also plundered some high-tech talents from the Soviet area. As for the German prisoners of war, they became free laborers in the Soviet Union. Calculated by the international market price 1938 1 October 1938 of the Soviet Central Bureau of Statistics: from August 1945 to August 1 948,65438+1.
After the Soviet army sent troops to the northeast, it also transported the local Japanese machinery and equipment back to the Soviet Union, and at the same time transported 700,000 prisoners of the Kwantung Army to Siberia as coolies. The increase of territory and the acquisition of economic materials and labor greatly accelerated the post-war recovery and reconstruction of the Soviet Union. In particular, the technical talents in nuclear physics and other fields obtained from Germany have provided great help for the future research and development of nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union. Although Germany did not build an atomic bomb until its defeat, it has accumulated rich experience in uranium ore processing and isotope separation. After the war, beria, leader of the Soviet KGB, recruited more than 300 German nuclear physicists and engineers in the Soviet-occupied areas.
1In June, 945, the first batch of German scientists and their families arrived in the Soviet Union. In August, Stalin ordered funds to build offices, research buildings and houses for scientists. In February 65438, the People's Committee of Internal Affairs set up the Ninth Bureau, which was responsible for managing German scientists working in the Soviet Union. These people later directly participated in the Soviet nuclear weapons research and development program. 1947 10 The first domestic ballistic missile R 1 designed and manufactured by the Soviet Union based on the German V2 missile achieved its first test launch. 1949 On August 29th, the first atomic bomb of the Soviet Union was successfully tested at the nuclear test site of the Central African Republic in Kazakhstan. The huge nuclear arsenal is precisely the trump card of the Soviet Union and the western camp headed by the United States.
The Second World War weakened the Soviet Union and its competitors: Germany and Japan, as defeated countries, were subjected to strict political and military restrictions after the war. Today, although Japan and Germany are technologically advanced and economically prosperous, they are not in the same order of magnitude as the five permanent members of the UN Security Council in terms of international political and military influence. In World War II, China's ruined France has become a marginalized role in the competition of great powers. Even Britain, which attended the meeting of the Big Three with the United States and the Soviet Union, became a second-rate role in the international community after World War II. With the general weakening of traditional powers such as Britain, France, Germany and Japan, the post-war international pattern presents an obvious trend of polarization and opposition between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union.